Sharp Conflict Over Report On Smut

WASHINGTON — A long smoldering controversy with in and without the Fed eral Commission on Obscen ity and Pornography burst into flame last week and threatened to incinerate the commission's yet unpublished report recommending a re laxation of legal controls over smut in this country.

The commission was authorized by Congress in 1967 in response to increas ing protests about pornog raphy from the members’ constituents. President John son named social scientists, clergymen, attorneys and mass media executives to the commission in January, 1968, and it began to function in July that year.

Congress instructed the commission to investigate the extent and effect of por nography in society, to de termine whether there is a need for legal controls and to examine the constitution ality of those restrictions.

The commission, by ma jprity vote, however, deter mined that pornography was not harmful, that legal con trols for adults were un necessary and that laws on pornography were probably unconstitutional.

That started the fire. It broke into the open last week when Charles H. Keating Jr., a Cincinnati lawyer who is the most out spoken dissenter on the com mission, obtained a court order that forbids the com mission from publishing its report until after a hearing next Friday.

At issue is whether the report will ever be made public or, if it is, in what form. The majority of the commission, led by Chair man William B. Lockhart, dean of the University of Minnesota Law School, have been trying to resist pres sures to water it down.

Mr. Keating, who is Presi dent Nixon's only appointee on the two‐year‐old commis sion, wants 30 to 45 days after the Friday hearing to write a comprehensive dis senting opinion. But the commission goes out of ex istence on Sept. 30—and if the report is not ready, it most likely will end up in the ash can.

Outside the commission, the question of pornography is becoming a political issue, although not in partisan terms. The division, rather, is between liberals who ad yocate the freest possible speech and conservatives who see pornography as a disease eating away at the vitals of society.

Vice President Agnew touched that nerve in Spring field, Ill., last week when he said: “How do you fathom the thinking of these radical liberals who work them selves into a lather over an alleged shortage of nutrients in a child's box of Wheat ies—but who cannot get exercised at all over the same child's constant ex posure to a flood of hard core pornography that could warp his moral outlook for a lifetime?”

The White House would be relieved to see the report kept out of the public eye. Even if it does come out, the White House has moved quietly to disassociate the Nixon Administration from the commission and to dis credit the majority findings and recommendations.

White House Role

The White House has tac itly approved Mr. Keating's legal action and has as signed Presidential speech writer Patrick Buchanan to take a strong hand in writ ing the dissenting re port.

The Administration wants to have a public position on the report that it can claim for its own because the ma jority opinion goes against what the Administration perceives to be the mores of middle America, President Nixon's main target for po litical cultivation.

Advocates of the commis sion majority position, fear ing that the report will be suppressed or watered down, have leaked large portions of it to the press. It shows that the commission major ity concluded that most Americans do not consider pornography a serious prob lem, that both men and wo men are sexually aroused by erotic materials but their sexual activity is not altered, and that continued expos ure to pornography usually leads to satiation and bore dom.

The report further main tains that exposure to por nography has little effect on adult morality, that it is not detrimental to juvenile mor als or attitudes toward sex, and that it does not cause sexual crimes. Based on those findings, the 12 mem bers in the majority on the commission recommend ed the repeal of all Federal, state and local laws pertaining to “consenting adults” who want to obtain explicit sexually — oriented books, pictures and films.

The majority argued that most of those laws violate a citizen's constitutional rights to free speech under the First Amendment.

But the majority also vot ed to retain legal restrictions on public displays, unso licited mailings and distri bution of pornography to young people, plus prohibi tions against sexual depic tions in advertising and sales promotion.

That brought a rebuttal from the other end of the commission's spectrum. Mar vin E. Wolfgang and Otto N. Larsen, sociologists at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wash ington, respectively, said there should be no specified statutory restrictions at all. They contended all such leg islation was ambiguous and often unenforceable.

Besides the internal dis sent and the opposition of the Administration, the com mission is faced with criti cism from Capitol Hill. Rep resentative Robert N. C. Nix, Chairman of the House Sub committee on Postal Opera tions, is planning hearings for the end of the month.

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A version of this archives appears in print on September 13, 1970, on Page E5 of the New York edition with the headline: Sharp Conflict Over Report On Smut. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe